
Book_^y 




UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA BULLETIN 



Vol. V APRIL 1, 1911 No. 2 



THE CHARACTER AND PUBLIC SERVICES 
OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

By Samuel W. Belford 



THE PROGRESSIVE STATE FROM THE UNIVERSITY 

POINT OF VIEW 

By .Joseph Edward Stubbs, President of the University 



Published Quarterly by the University of Nevada 
Reno, Nevada 

Entered in the Postoffice at Reno, Nevada, as second-class matter under the Act of Consnress. 

July 16, 1894 




" '^ '"^oh 



Note.— The University of Nevada publications are 
offered in exchange for certain periodicals and for the 
publications of learned societies and institutions, uni- 
versities, and libraries. For sample copies address the 
University Library, Reno, Nevada. 

James Edward Church, Jr., 
Carl Alfred Jacobson, 
Herbert Wynford Hill, 

Committee on Publications. 



UNIVfiRSITY OF NEVADA BULLETIN 



Vol. V APRIL 1, 1911 No. 2 



THE CHARACTER AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

By Samuel W. Belford 



THE PROGRESSIVE STATE FROM THE UNIVERSITY 
POINT OF VIEW 

By Joseph Edward Stubbs, President of the University 



Published Quarterly by the University of Nevada 
Reno, Nevada 

Entered in the Postoffice at Reno, Nevada, as second-class matter under the Act of Congress, 

July 15, 1894 



ukcolriana 
PROGRAM 
LINCOLN MEMORIAL EXERCISES 
February 11, 1911. 



Presiding Officer . . President Joseph E. Stubbs 



Music Cadet Band 

Lincoln, the Master Administrator .... 
Hon. Tasker L. Oddie, Governor of Nevada 

Music University Glee Club 

The Character and Public Services of Abraham 
Lincoln Samuel W. Belford 

Music Cadet Band 

Brief addresses were made by the following state 
and legislative officers : 

Hon. Gilbert C. Ross, 

Lieutenant Governor 

Hon. Clay Tallman, 

President Pro-tem of the Senate 

Hon, August Frohlich, 

Speaker of the Assembly 

Hon. A. A. Codd, 

President of the Board of Regents 

The members of the Legislature were the guests of 
honor. 



THE CHARACTER AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.* 

By Samuel W. Belford 

The influence of environment on nations opens a do- 
main of historical speculation that is well-nigh limitless. 
The habits and customs of men are controlled by the nat- 
ural conditions which surround them. The Mediterranean 
and the Aegean seas produced a maritime people. The 
fertility of the soil, the warm sunshine shedding its glow 
over the land of Italy, Greece, and Africa, brought forth 
innumerable harvests for which the water opened a market 
with far distant races. Commerce was encouraged, and 
association with a greater and 'broader world led to cul- 
ture, knowledge, and refinement. The development of 
art, the spread of learning, the acquisition of comforts 
and luxuries established an earlier civilization, where 
nature had so generously provided the means for its 
gro^^'th. 

In the colder North, the products of the soil were 
meager, insufficient in themselves to sustain life or furnish 
food for a numerous people. The forests, dense and im- 
penetrable, were not adapted to encourage the knowledge 
of one tribe by another, but they afforded to man a 
means of sustenance in the perils of the chase. A nomadic 
race of hunters was the result — barbarous and ignorant 
warriors, lusty for battle, hardy and courageous, who 
sought a better field for their exploits and an escape from 
the prison of the woods. 

The necessity for food extended their wanderings and 



*An address delivered at the Lincoln Memorial Services at the University of 
Nevada, February 11, 1911. 

1 



2 Samuel W. Belford 

conquests, and they finally reached the shores, to become 
wayfarers on the tides of the ocean. It was the only 
hig'hwaj' to tempt their restless ambition. An outlet from 
trouble at home, an open way to more genial climates, a 
means of retreat or communication, in the event of vic- 
tory or defeat, the ocean called to these people as to her 
OAvn children. They understood the moods and foibles 
of each other, played with life and jested with death. 

The Viking heard a battle cry in the raging tempest, 
beheld the favor or threats of heaven in sunshine or low- 
ering cloud, and felt himself rocked to sleep on the bosom 
of the waves, whose chant was the primitive music that 
roused, or" soothed, the instincts of the primitive man. 
If the sea was cruel, it was also kind. If it took life, it 
gave it in return, and this element, working on man, fash- 
ioned a race which it has led to the uttermost parts of 
the earth. Proud and imperious, dominating and exult- 
ant, its blood touched with the wanderlust of ever-moving 
tides and currents, scornful of obstacles, heedless of dan- 
ger, the seed of Norman and Saxon has overrun the w^orld 
to conquer its barren places. 

Nature with them had ever been a jealous mistress. 
Her favors were only for the strong and hardy, for she 
demanded vigor of mind and body, prodigious labor, 
clean living and right thinking. The rude buffeting of 
ocean storms was but the prelude to the ruder conquest 
of an unknown continent. The men who could survive 
the one could overcome the hardships of the other. Con- 
tact with her made us a pioneer people, a civilizing, lib- 
erty-loving race, fit to cope Avith forest and mountain, 
with plain and river. 

So it was when Greenland beckoned to the Norsemen, 
when the Cavalier stepped upon the shores of Virginia, 
when the Mayflower turned her prow to the west and the 
Pilgrims knelt upon the soil of a new land, and so it v/as. 



Abraham Lincoln 3 

in 1809, when Abraham Lincoln looked out upon the 
lights and shadows of the Kentucky wilderness. 

Had the imagination of man in that year sought to 
light upon a child of promise in whose destiny the future 
was likely to become interested, Abraham Lincoln would 
have been among the least of these. No pride of ancestry 
was his; no hereditary place of distinction Avas awaiting 
him ; no fortune, gathered by the labors of others, was 
at his call. Poor whites, in a community as wretched as 
themselves, untutored except in the ways of poverty, far 
from civilization, on a desolate frontier — these were the 
companions of his early childhood and this was the stock 
from which he sprang. And such a childhood, half- 
clothed and ill-fed, finding comfort only in the dreams 
that haunt the infant mind. A cheerless window by day, 
a lighted tallow dip by night were the looms upon which 
were woven the somber colors of his fate. His heritage 
was merely the common heritage of his race, rich in 
promise, if strength of character could grow in a soil of 
hopeless misery. 

The crosses of childhood are as real to those who bear 
them as were the ones on Calvary. Abraham had more 
than his share of those that were real and hardest to bear. 
Between him and his father there was no mystic bond 
of sympathy. Thomas Lincoln was scarcely fitted to enjoy 
the good will of those among whom he lived; and he 
could not understand or encourage a quest for things 
that lay beyond his own horizon. The axe and plow, the 
rifle and log cabin determined the limits of his world, 
while the hardest kind of hard labor, shifted to the boy, 
was its daily exaction. But in the mother love of gentle 
Nancy Hanks was the good fairy of those early years. 
She understood him and became his refuge and inspira- 
tion, leading his spirit past danger and pitfall to the 
heights where the sun was shining. If the burden was 



4 Samuel W. Belford 

too heavy, she lightened it ; if the cross was too hard, she 
took it upon herself; if the way was too long for his 
lonely heart, she traveled it with him. As a potter with 
his clay, so she moulded the soul and character of her 
boy, marking deep by sorrow and patience the lines of 
strength, and giving him a stature that could endure re- 
sponsibility. 

What wonder that their cabin, standing midway be- 
tween clearing and forest, became in his eyes strangely 
invested with the solemn beauty of a temple ! It was 
illumined from within by the quenchless light of a meas- 
ureless love. And when she had gone to v/atch over him 
from another shore, the despairing lad trudged for miles 
through sleet and snow to find some minister of God to 
say "Memoriam" by the lonely grave where his heart lay 
buried. 

From Kentucky to Indiana, and from Indiana to Illi- 
nois, was the pilgrimage of the Lincolns, moving from 
one scene of shiftless living to another, until time had 
marked the end of Abraham's youth. If it was a dreary 
stretch of twenty-one years, it was all behind him, and 
he dared to lift his eyes in confidence to the future. He 
had discharged his duties to the utmost limit. There were 
no obligations to father or family M^hich remained unful- 
filled. The coarsest and most galling labor he had given 
freely and without stint, submitting to take a place beside 
the beast of burden, the yoke on man and ox alike, as 
the plow made its troubled way through the virgin soil. 
When the work on the Lincoln place was over, his toil 
had just begun. There were other fields to be tilled, other 
rails to be split and fences built, and Thomas Lincoln 
always found it convenient to sell the labor of his son to 
those who needed hired men. 

Lincoln never had religious training such as this age 
affords. He read the Bible, because it was one of the few 



Abraham Lincoln 5 

books within his reach, just as he read the Statutes of 
Indiana. His father looked upon religion with an unusual 
catholicity of spirit, easily gliding from one church to 
another as each in turn appeared where he happened to 
be living. Probably the Baptist faith was the most im- 
pressive with Thomas Lincoln, as it gave him one of the 
few shocks he ever received, and it clung to him until he 
dried. 

It was such a life as must test the mettle of the strong- 
est, such a training that only the hardiest could survive ; 
and yet it rounded out the character of Abraham Lincoln 
as no other life could possibly have done. He learned by 
the bitterness of his own experience the virtues of patience 
and forbearance. He acquired the habits of self-reliance 
and foresight, and he knew how" to keep his eye on the 
furrow and to follow it to the end. But above all, he 
gained a master's knowledge of the character of men. 
He knew right and justice, because both had been repeat- 
edly denied to him. He had tasted privation, disappoint- 
ment and want, and drunk their dregs. There was no 
form of suffering or sorrow to which he was a stranger, 
while his ear was always tuned to catch the voice of de- 
spair. He saw things as they were, not as they were sup- 
posed to be. He distinguished reality from appearance, 
and his instinct was for truth. He recognized the weak- 
ness of human nature, feeling how prone it was to err, 
how worthy of forgiveness it could become. He gave to 
the tenderness of love and sympathy a full measure of 
appreciation, though he had known them so little, and 
he yielded to duty an undivided devotion that neither 
flagged nor faltered. 

To these were added the greater belief in the capacity 
of man to dictate his own destiny. Abraham Lincoln had 
overcome so much that he felt that nothing good was ever 
wholly lost ; that somehow and somewhere the right would 



6 Samltel W. Belford 

assert itself; that it could not be crushed nor permanently 
kept down. He must have seen the beginning of the new 
beliefs that are giving comfort and hope to the children 
of men ; that as we are made in the image of God, so do 
we partake of His power; that our mission is the accom- 
plishment of good, the certain elimination of evil, and 
the establishment here of a happiness for the human race 
not dependent upon the frail limitations of material sense. 

Lincoln had developed and educated himself. Endowed 
with qualities latent in nearly all men, he hafi by intense 
application, by constant exercise of mind and heart and 
body, brought forth the mental and spiritual strength 
which in after years sustained him. 

His journey to New Orleans was momentous, for it 
brought him into actual contact with slavery. It 
showed him the ownership of one man by another, 
the 02ie who labored and the other Avho took the fruits 
of that labor. Its heartless injustice, the cruelty of a 
law-protected evil, its violation of every natural and 
humanizing impulse, the degradation of men to a state 
where they were no longer entitled to recognition as 
men. the bondage of the son flowing from the bondage 
of the mother, the overturning of all the purposes of a 
righteous God — all these combined to make an inefface- 
able impression upon Lincoln and to burn its image upon 
his soul. 

It is singular and interesting that he should at this 
period have been in the Prairie State, which bore a name 
of promise, sweetened by the memory of Marquette. It 
is related that, years before civilization had spread over 
the face of the countrj-, the forest priest, speeding his 
canoe on the "Father of AVaters", had come upon an 
Indian camp. They took him through the woods to the 
lodge of their chief and, marvelling at his pale face, plied 
him with a hundred questions, as if he were, in truth, a 



Abraham Lincoln 7 

celestial visitor. He quietly asked them who they were. 
The chief replied, ''We are the Illinois", which being- 
interpreted means, "We are Men". And snrel5\ in that 
land God raised up men. 

A legislative career followed Lincoln's failure as a 
merchant and his activity as a surveyor. It was notable 
in only two respects : it furnished an index of his intellec- 
tual honesty, it was a symbol of his intellectual develop- 
ment. In a county where Andrew Jackson was idolized, 
Lincoln made his lirst essay into politics as a Whig. 

Facing certain defeat as a candidate for the Legis- 
lature, he declared his adherence to the policies of Henry 
Clay and told his neighbors, "I have been too familiar 
with disappointment to be much hart by defeat." At 
this time, too, he was growing in the power of expression, 
in his spreading fame as an orator, and in the crystalliza- 
tion and maturity of ideas w^hich he never afterwards 
abandoned. 

And here occurred an incident the importance of 
which neither participant ever realized. A young Ver- 
monter, by the name of Stephen A. Douglas, crossed the 
narrow orbit of Lincoln's life and heard the raw legis- 
lator from New Salem denounce slavery before an assem- 
blage of its friends. Douglas, from the North, its apolo- 
gist, Lincoln from the South, its assailant — it would be 
difficult to imagine two men so totally at variance, and 
it might not be uninteresting to take a mental picture 
of both. Douglas was State's attorney, clever, captiva- 
ting, volatile, of good address, short of stature, with a 
handsome head resting closely upon graceful shoulders. 
Lincoln, partaking of the soil, the hero of the wrestling- 
ring and of the frontier combat, but lately clothed in 
skins, tall, gaunt, uncouth, a half-starved look on his 
sunken cheeks, big-boned and awkward, homely of gait 
and gesture, was a storm-beaten figure, emerging from 



8 SAMUEii W. Belford 

the tempest. Upon these two history was preparing to 
focus its attention while Providence worked out the des- 
tiny of a nation. 

The legislative career closed ingloriously. Lincoln 
went back to his narrow life ; Douglas moved in an ever- 
widening sphere, exciting the admiration of his wonder- 
ing countrymen. Lincoln had studied law — how, only the 
Lord and himself ever knew. A term in Congress, brief 
and inconspicuous, and a rejected application for an 
appointment to office, seemed to close the chapter of his 
bid for fame. 

But there never was a decade where man and cause 
were preparing for each other as that which followed 
Lineolu's retirement from public life. He became a noted 
figure on his judicial circuit, moving constantly among 
the farmers of Illinois, establishing friendships in every 
town, earning the esteem and respect of their people, and 
drawing to himself the personal affections of a multitude 
to whom Douglas was only a name. He became a leader in 
his profession, bench and bar alike recognizing the master 
mind. Skillful in debate, persuasive, keen-minded, grasp- 
ing the fundamentals of his case and holding fast to the 
right, such was Lincoln, as developed by the court room. 
His memory has enriched the best traditions of his pro- 
fession and has convinced those of us who follow it that 
in adherence to its highest standards is the open road to 
success. 

The legal profession is one of opportunity and responsi- 
bility, charged as it is with the duty of making and apply- 
ing the laws of the land to every relation of human 
society. What greater incentive should exist for the exer- 
cise of the loftiest ideals than mere brotherhood in such 
a calling ! The lawyer who ignores his duty, who violates 
the ethical spirit of the law, who encourages a contempt 
for it, or brings it into disrepute, is disloyal to his state 



Abraham Lincoln 9 

and country. It matters not whether it be the counsel 
for great corporations, v/ho aids them to pervert the law 
and to conquer through chicanery, or the obscure harpy 
of divorce courts — both stand alike upon the stool of pro- 
fessional unworthiness. Lincoln regarded the upright 
practice of law as a public duty, and the people knew 
he so regarded it. His reputation became more than state 
wide and, in an age before the press did our thinking, his 
power as an orator, his fame as a lawyer, the sincerity 
and depth of his convictions, had won for him the heart 
of Illinois. 

And as he grew so grew the cause that was to claim 
him. The group of great men who founded the Nation 
recognized the danger of slavery and, so far as their 
influence extended, they sought to curtail it. Jefferson 
had caught a glimpse of the impending conflict, and with 
all his earnestness he endeavored to persuade Virginia 
to give up her slaves. AVashington and Madison were 
no less emphatic in their denunciation of its curse — a 
curse that rested not alone upon the slave, but even more 
upon the master — and not upon the master alone, but 
even more upon the Nation. The generation of the Revolu- 
tion condemned slavery as a moral wrong. Many of their 
descendants, blinded by the wealth of an economic system 
resting upon unrequited toil, declared that it w^as right. 

The challenge was accepted bj'' Lovejoy, Garrison, and 
Phillips, who dedicated their lives to its abolition. The 
growth of public opinion was slow, but it was steadily 
attaining strength. Calhoun and Jackson had already 
come into collision, not ostensibly, but in reality, over 
slavery, and the South was quick to realize that its favored 
institution was in danger. A great historian has observed 
that no government was ever overthrown except with the 
help of some of its departments. So the slave power 
organized itself politically to make government the ally 



10 Samuel W. Belford 

of its interest, and, to fasten its hold upon the countrj'', 
seized the fountains of justice. It played upon the pas- 
sions of the people ; it incited them to party loyalt}^, when 
it controlled all parties. It suppressed honest discussion 
by social discrimination and by pleas for business stability. 
It seduced men from their duty by the gratification of an 
empty ambition, in which principle was to play no part. 
It beguiled the people by allowing them to juggle with 
other issues. It forced the Dred Scott decision and the 
Missouri Compromise. It kept Webster out of the Presi- 
dency and filled that office with men of its own choosing. 
What a splendid expanse of mediocrity it produced from 
Jackson to Lincoln ! 

Do we not own its modern successor? Have we not 
seen the same tactics and the same plan with concen- 
trated and unscrupulous wealth holding the reins? The 
abuse of the courts, the subservience of government, the 
insolence of a Senate, the feebleness of a House, the 
raising of false issues to distract the public mind, social 
ostracism and religious cant when unlawful usurpations 
by capital are questioned, appeals to party loyalty when 
neither party is worthy of public confidence and when 
both bid for the support of the same influence, the 
betrayal of principle, the procession of smiling acquies- 
cence to the White House — what a glorious stretch of 
mediocrity it has given us between Lincoln and Roosevelt ! 
May there be another such answer to our prayer, as Lin- 
coln was the answer to the prayer of his time. May there 
be found in this great land another prophet to remove 
the bandage from our eyes and to turn us toward the light. 

The Missouri Compromise was illogical and inefficient. 
It could not last permanently because it was fundamen- 
tally wrong. It represented and stood for a strange spec- 
tacle — the national conscience attempting to lull itself to 
sleep — and yet it was the result of years of agitation from 



Abraham Lincoln 11 

the time of the fatal mistake in the Constitution, which 
recognized slavery, to the day of its enactment. It pro- 
vided that Missouri might be admitted as a slave state 
on condition that, thereafter, northwestern territory 
should forever be free. All sections of the country had 
apparently acquiesced in this settlement of a dangerous 
problem. The Compromise was entirely satisfactory to 
Big Business and it was forced upon the people by that 
sordid class which, from the beginning of time, has railed 
at progress and cried, "Let well enough alone" — a class 
which has wrought the ruin of every nation which allowed 
it to control or which listened to its threats. 

Slavery had cast its covetous eyes upon Missouri, and, 
to secure her then, agreed to give up the indefinite future. 
Men were found, even a majority, who believed that a 
compact would be kept by Wrong, but the growth of 
Kansas and Nebraska excited the foes and friends of 
slavery, the one to keep it out of the new states, the 
other to force it upon them. With a ruthless disregard of 
all obligations of faith and honesty, of fair and open 
dealing, the Compromise was repealed that slavery might 
be extended, and Douglas, to divert the anger of the 
North, went before the Country with the specious plea 
that the Compromise should be repealed in order that the 
new states themselves might have the right to declare 
whether they wanted slavery or not. 

The storm broke over the country like the wrath of 
an avenging angel. It swept men and states from their 
moorings, unbridled their passions, and stirred to its 
depth the heart of a free people. Wrong had refused to 
keep its treaty. The South met the outbreak with threats 
of disunion, declaring that only by the acceptance of its 
terms could the Union be preserved, that only as its 
creature could the Nation live. But it went further than 
this. Relying upon the noblest of sentiments, the pride 



12 Samuel W. Belford 

of nationality, the leaders of the South resolved that they 
would allow the Union to continue, upon the condition 
that no restriction whatever should be placed upon the 
extension of slavery, which, thereafter, should be per-' 
mitted to roam wheresoever it willed. These declarations 
were the forerunners of the famous peace congress at 
Richmond, which two years later issued its manifesto that 
the South would resume its place in the Union when an 
amendment to the Constitution should be adopted pro- 
hibiting Congress and the states from in any manner 
interfering with slavery. Thus early did it become clear 
that the slave power, to protect itself, would unhesita- 
tingly sacrifice the integrity of the Nation. 

Yet Douglas took up its cause, and a formidable cham- 
pion he v/as, the foremost man of his day, owning an 
international renown, strengthened by the quiet sympa- 
thy of envious Europe, his fame secure, his words cour- 
ageous. His very audacity quieted the storm, and he 
waited in serene confidence for an antagonist to brave 
the lightning. None seemed to come, none seemed to 
measure up to his battle stature. The North was without 
its knight, when Destiny beckoned to Lincoln and whis- 
pered that the hour was at hand. 

Then the way was made clear. Perhaps he could see 
at last wh}^ his whole life had been centering toward this 
supreme effort ; why labor had been his lot, with suffering 
ever at his side ; why poverty and toil in shutting out one 
light had given him another within himself; why the 
frontier had blessed him with a strong body wherein he 
might nurture a clear mind. He, perhaps, realized that 
contact with the soil was after all a broadening education, 
teaching him to make articulate the inmost feelings of the 
people. When all seemed lost, everything had, in fact, 
been won. The trials and disappointments which had 
attended him in his slow, upward movement had given 



Abraham Lincoln 13 

him patience with himself and charity for others. Depri- 
vation had spiritualized Lincoln and made him feel the 
truth before others had caught a glimpse of the fleeting 
vision. 

It was a struggle of Titans, because both realized that 
Freedom and Slavery at last stood face to face and that 
one or the other must yield. The last compromise was 
over, the last quibble had been spoken, the conflict had 
indeed become irrepressible. I have heard men who 
listened to the debate tell of this victory of Douglas and 
that one of Lincoln ; how the tide rose and fell over these 
two men, the one the embodiment of grace, the other 
standing as stark and gaunt as Truth; how anomalous 
that slavery should exist in one State and not in another; 
that evil could be partly good, and good partly evil; 
how, if slavery was right, it was wholly right, if wrong, 
it was wholly wrong. With the consummate skill of a 
master, Lincoln drove Douglas from one position to an- 
other, shattered his hold upon the South, destroyed the 
confidence of the North in his sincerity, and left him a 
national figure without a following and one whose race 
was run. 

The climax of the debate was Lincoln's declaration 
that a house divided against itself could not stand, and 
his question whether, in the opinion of Douglas, the Fed- 
eral government had the power, under the Constitution, 
to exclude slavery from the Territories. It was a startling 
question. If Douglas answered in the affirmative, he lost 
the South, if he answered in the negative, he lost the 
North. The result was as Lincoln had foreseen ; his great 
antagonist threw away the future for a present advantage, 
while Lincoln yielded the moment and gained eternity. 
Who can ever forget the pathos of his life when Lincoln 
simply said, "With me the race of ambition has been a 
failure, with him it has been a splendid success. Every- 



14 Samuei; W. Belford 

body expects Judge Douglas to be President, nobody be- 
lieves that I will ever be President." 

Throughout the debate, Lincoln's appeal was more 
to the South than to the North, as he tried to recall his 
own people to their sense of duty before the stern necessi- 
ties of war should desolate the land. He hated slavery 
with all the vigor of his nature, but he sought to reclaim 
the slave holder by every concession, short of principle, 
which the Nation could yield. To Lincoln the Union was 
everything, to the preservation of which even slavery 
must be sacrificed. Plis election to the Presidency in 1860 
was the direct result of the conflict of 1858. America, 
even in those days of internal strife, was still the land of 
opportunity. Within twenty-five years from the time 
Lincoln ceased to be a hired laborer, he was President 
of the United States, called to the exercise of more power 
than any sovereign since Napoleon has attempted to wield. 

It may perhaps be said that the darkest period of his 
life was the stretch of four months between the date of 
his election and his inauguration. He was committed to 
the preservation of the Union. Without knowing or car- 
ing to know, without a proper understanding of his aims, 
heedlessly and impetuously the South had embraced seces- 
sion. Lincoln had not promised to destroy slavery, he 
had no intention of interfering with the economic condi- 
tions of the South, nor of breaking up its domestic ar- 
rangements. He had thought and hoped that slavery 
would itself reach a position of gradual extinction by the 
purchase of the freedom of the slaves by the government. 
Emancipation was not involved in the contest, except as 
the South itself involved it, and v.ith Lincoln it was al- 
ways compensated emancipation. He realized that the 
South of 1860 had inherited its slaves, that it had grown 
up under a system for which it was not responsible, but 
which had come to it from generations of the past. And 



Abraham Lincoln 15 

he knew that the South had itself in the earlier days, 
ag-ainst the opposition of New England, attempted to 
wipe out the stain of involuntary servitude. In his broad 
charity and deep sense of justice, Lincoln shrank from 
the infliction of suffering upon the Southern people, either 
through the loss of property, for w^hich he earnestly sought 
to pay, or through the calamities of war, which he was 
strenuously struggling to prevent. 

But their attitude admitted of no accommodation and 
they attempted to force the recognition of their program 
by the destruction of the Union. To this mad policy was 
added the greater error of the establishment on this con- 
tinent of a distinctive slave power, with an independent 
government of its own, and the folly of making one people 
strangers and aliens. Day after day, during this period 
of the most melancholy forebodings, the administration 
of Buchanan, quietly and treasonably, continued to under- 
mine the foundations of the Republic. It is doubtful if 
history can produce a parallel for the perfidy and cunning, 
for the shameless betrayal of trust which characterized 
the last months of that administration. There is some- 
thing so sinister in covert treason, so despicable in him 
who betrays, that the hearts of men instinctively recoil in 
horror. Lincoln knew that the strength of the Union was 
slowly ebbing aw^ay, already he felt the blows that were 
struck against its existence, and he saw armies made ready 
to attack it. State after state went out; the supremacy 
of the law and of the Constitution was destroyed ; Wash- 
ington slept in lethargy, while only those who sought the 
life of the country were active. That period was his 
Gethsemane, and it aged him in a hundred days. 

His inauguration was to be taken as a proclamation of 
war, as the time when the South should capture Washing- 
ton, dissolve the Union, and force the recognition of its 
own independence. The preparations were made. Beaure- 



16 Samui:l W. Belford 

gard was in South Carolina, Lee in Virginia, at the head 
of hosts, ready to attack; Lincoln was in Springfield, 
powerless to stop their machinations. He was conscious 
of the gravity of his peril, and, hetter than all others, he 
realized the overshadowing danger into which he was 
about to step. But his agony was the agony of a strong 
man, not worn upon the sleeve, but written upon the 
heart. 

To save the Union, he had a divided North, unarmed 
and unprepared, its counsels distracted by dissension and 
faction, the Treasury bankrupt, its credit on the verge 
of ruin, and an arm}- and nav}' which existed only on 
paper. Even his Cabinet added to the troubles of the 
already overburdened man. Subjected to their abuse, 
their quiet jibes and sneers, the new President in his own 
official family was a stranger. 

Stanton had treated Lincoln with the most cruel abuse 
at their first meeting, and in describing him had given a 
scurrilous tongue its full and unimpeded range. The 
great newspapers of the country attempted to make Lin- 
coln an object of nation-wide contempt. There was noth- 
ing too sharp or too bitter for the pens of the scribes who 
pictured him. Yet through it all was his same unending 
patience, his charity and his good will, even for those who 
defamed him most. He seemed to dread praise more than 
he feared criticism. It is related that upon one occasion, 
when his genius was so conspicuous as to arouse the 
reluctant admiration of Stanton, a kindly word of appreci- 
ation for Lincoln escaped from the lips of the great war 
minister. When this praise reached Lincoln's ear, he 
said it reminded him of the Hoosier blacksmith who told 
his neighbors he guessed he loved ginger bread more than 
any one in the world and got less of it. 

Seward and Chase, great as they undoubtedly were, 
were not yet great enough to sink their personal differ- 



Abraham Lincoln 17 

ences in the face of the coming storm. It required all 
the infinite tact, patience, and humility which Lincoln had 
to hold them together, and to keep each within his own 
sphere. It seemed to them that the man of least impor- 
tance in the Lincoln administration was Abraham Lincoln. 
To be sure, he was President, but they had been selected 
by some occult interposition to relieve him of the responsi- 
bilities of his office. 

The country awaited Lincoln's inauguration with in- 
tense anxiety, first, because of what he might say, and, 
secondly, because of the results of his declaration. In- 
stead of proclaiming war, his inaugural was a prayer for 
peace ; a call to the South to come back to the Union and 
to abandon the frenzied passions of the moment. Stand- 
ing at the east front of the Capitol, overlooking a sea of 
upturned faces, under conditions that would appal the 
bravest soul, Lincoln made his appeal to the heart and 
sympathy of the erring South, and to the conscience of 
the civilized world. The sublimity of its thought, the 
depth of its feeling, its infinite mercy and charity, will 
thrill humanity as long as memory endures. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will 
not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves 
the aggressors. You have no oath registered iii Heaven to destroy 
the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "pre- 
serve, protect, and defend it." 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Thougli passion may have strained, it must 
not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, 
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living 
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, 
by the better angels of our nature. 

But its appeal was in vain. Secession flew to arms and 
the curse of war was loose upon the land. 



18 Samuel W. Belford 

England, France, and Spain were merely waiting for 
an opportunity to inject themselves into our affairs. Inter- 
national friendship is a myth and a delusion, the product 
of the dreams of doctrinaires. Selfish interest wrote the 
policy of the Powers, all of whom sought, so far as they 
could, the overthrow of the Republic. England was more 
keenly alive to the eottpn fields than to human rights. 
When I speak of England, I mean the government, not 
the people, of England ; for they, even at the time when 
our war was closing their factories and bringing idleness 
and want upon them, urged us to persevere in the struggle 
in the interest of human liberty. A Tory government, 
headed by Palmerston and Russell, Avas in full and com- 
plete control, representing the landed interests of the 
kingdom and its aristocracy. It Avas a doubtful boast 
to say that every blade of grass had its representative in 
Parliament, where millions of people were unrepresented. 
Through the cabinets of Europe, Russell sent the message 
that the Union was dead, and it was he Avho notified Lin- 
coln that Great Britain and France would act in concert 
with reference to our affairs. When we were struggling 
in the very slough of despond, English privateers were 
preying upon our commerce ; when we were fighting for 
the right to exist as a nation, England was lending aid 
and comfort to the enemy; when we were seeking to 
abolish slavery, England was scheming to force it upon 
us — and this from the government of a country which 
has given the world Milton and Hampden, Chatham, Burke 
and Fox. There were but two nations who extended to 
the Republic their sympathy and support, Russia, whose 
Emperor had liberated twenty million serfs, and China, 
whose Prince Regent, in the interests of mankind, closed 
the ports of his country ' ' to the seditious ' '. 

Putting down rebellion, while holding off a foreign 
war, were greater tasks than ever confronted an American 



Abraham Lincoln 19 

statesman. Singly, they would stagger Courage itself, 
when combined, only the heroic soul could rise to the 
emergency. 

Throughout the terrible years of the war, Lincoln held 
Europe at bay by a policy so wise and magnanimous that 
it finally won the admiration 6f his antagonists. The 
South was rash enough to strike the first blow, and for 
two years Europe witnessed the struggles of the Federal 
government to re-establish an authority disputed by 
armed insurrection. In such a contest it could not inter- 
vene without inviting a deluge upon itself. When the 
war had dragged itself through defeat and disaster, until 
the patience of the North was becoming exhausted and 
the hopes of European intervention, "to stop a seemingly 
useless slaughter," were about to be realized, Lincoln 
struck the blow of Emancipation. 

Its object was twofold, first, as a decisive war measure, 
to rally the North and to take the slaves from the South- 
ern fields, and, secondly, to checkmate foreign activities 
toward interference with the prosecution of the war. Noth- 
ing better was ever conceived to produce far reaching re- 
sults at a critical time. Its effect was spontaneous and 
world-wide — it immediately realized the freedom of a 
race and the applause of mankind. 

From the time of the issuance of the famous proclama- 
tion, w^hen Lincoln wrote "Liberty" on the banners of 
his army, the character of the war became ennobled; it 
was being Avaged, not alone to establish the supremacy of 
the Constitution and the authority of the Nation, but to 
give freedom to millions of men. History may be searched 
in vain to find where such a chance was ever given to 
one man to confer liberty upon an alien race. It is idle 
to believe that freedom can long be maintained by one 
people who deny the same blessings to another people. In 
the final analysis, the measure of the good we enjoy Avill 



20 Samttel W. Belpord 

be the amount of good we do to others. The law of com- 
pensation, under whatever guise it appears, proclaims 
that what we do to others, we, in reality, do to ourselves, 
whether it be good or evil, right or wrong. And the law 
is eternal. The greatest sufferer from injustice is he who 
works it, the greatest injury from hate is to him who 
indulges it. We have only what w^e give — love or malice — 
and it is reflected back upon our own hearts. As it is 
with men, so it must be with nations of men. So it was 
with Lincoln. 

By giving freedom to the slaves, he w^on the moral 
support of civilization. It strengthened our armies, for- 
tified our cause, sustained the weak and timid, banished 
doubts and misgivings, and turned defeat into victory. 
The slave had, in fact, brought to the Emancipator the 
strength and courage that he needed to fight his way to 
the light. 

They were four terrible years; a conflict, the greatest 
in all the annals of time, had rent and split us asunder. 
Untold millions of treasure, thousands of precious lives, 
a wreck-strewai country were but a part of its awful cost. 
Yet through it all was the guidance of the burdened, sad- 
dened man who took the helm when the ship w^as sinking. 
It was his benevolence, his wisdom and patience which 
outrode the storm and stilled the contending hosts. A 
field of battle is the supreme expression of human effort — 
crowded with suffering, pulsating with despair, its misery 
infinite, its courage sublime. The whole Nation ivas 'battle- 
stricken, rising from one blow^ to sink under another. 
The strife of brothers is not God's work, but it is His 
work to hush the tumult. 

It is said that Lincoln cannot be explained. But he 
is explained in the knowledge we have of the righteous 
purposes of Providence. We do not know from whence 
there came to him the genius for statecraft, the lofty 



Abraham Lincoln 21 

eloquence at Gettysburg that made him the peer of 
Pericles, the luminous gift of military skill, the clear 
vision that could read the souls of men and foresee their 
actions, but we do know that, somehow, in that day of 
sternest trial, we had the things which we needed most, 
and knowing this is knoAving God. 

When his work was finished the great soul took its 
flight. The love which Lincoln gave to humanity has 
made humanity love Lincoln. I have seen the inscription 
on the marble tablet marking the spot where Lincoln died. 
A simple thing, that ''President Lincoln died in this 
house ' '. It was not death for him, but a greater life, and 
who will dare to mark the limits of a great life well lived? 
The influence of Lincoln's career will never cease to 
quicken the aspirations of mankind while the search for 
better things animates its heart. He was above the temp- 
tations of ambition, beyond the lust for power, untouched 
by the lure of personal glory, unless it came from the 
discharge of public duty. 

Clinging to his belief in the right, and its ultimate 
triumph, he regarded himself as .but an instrument of 
Providence, through which it was making clear its will. 
Whatever may have been in store for him lost its signifi- 
cance in his eyes, as he felt himself overshadowed by the 
greatness of the work he was called to do. 

There was no taint of Caesar in his nature ; nothing 
there that was patterned after Cromwell. Commander of 
the greatest army that has ever marched and of the great- 
est navy that has ever sailed the seas, invested with 
authority that knew no limits, Lincoln devoted his power 
to the service of freedom, to the redemption of the slave, 
to the good of mankind. Great power with Lincoln meant 
a prayer that his solemn opportunity might be met aright, 
that from his life's work there might come a new era of 
hope for humanity. 



22 Samuel W. Belford 

Do we wonder now that with his death the clouds 
of prejudice and injustice should have been lifted from 
the eyes of nations and that, at last, they were able to 
discern the sublimity of a character which they had re- 
viled and scorned? Even from England there came a plea 
for forgiveness for the thorns she had placed upon his 
brow, an acknowledgment of her error in crowding his 
way with trouble. When the news of his death reached 
London, the press hastened to make amends, and this 
tribute was paid to Lincoln's worth: 

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier! 

You who with mocking pencil v\'ont to trace, 
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, 

His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face. 

His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair. 
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, 

His lack of ail we prize as debonair. 

Of power or will to shine, of art to please! 

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet 
, The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, 

\ Between the mourners at his head and feet. 

Say, scurrile jester, is there room for j'ou? 

How humble, 5'et how hopeful he could be! 

How in good fortune and in ill the same! 
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, 

Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. 

Was it not fitting that in his final triumph, vdien peace 
had returned to the land, when slavery had forever been 
banished, not from this country alone, but from the entire 
civilized world, when the grandees, v/ho had spoken of 
him with contempt, w^ere the first to lay their tributes 
of admiration at his feet, when war itself had ceased, and 
the Eepublic, which he loved, stood forth cleansed and 
regenerated, when the affection of all mankind was lav- 



AbraHxIm Lincoln 23 

ished upon him, and when he was first in the hearts of 
men, that the cares of this life should pass away, and that 
his example should become as a light to the world! 

How rare has been the fortune of the Republic to have 
produced within a century two such men as Washington 
and Lincoln! What an acknowledgment of the capacity 
of man to attain perfection ! We think great events and 
great men are the fixed points and the peaks of history; 
and it is from them that we observe it in its totality and 
follow it along its highways. As the mariner, without a 
compass, may steer by the stars, so can this Nation, if it 
loses all else, guide itself aright by their example. 

Both lived to teach mankind that order and liberty 
were the fruits of democracy, that government could 
safely rest in the hands of the people, that the divine 
right of kings was a deceptive philosophy, outworn and 
outgrown by the march of progress. Their careers, so 
alike and yet so different, attested the truth of the belief, 
now so potent, that ideas must govern this universe, that 
above and beyond the ambition and plans of men are the 
fixed purposes of God, slowly, but certainly and inexora- 
bly moving toward their fulfillment. 

The greatest figure of the greatest war that history has 
ever known emerged from the struggle v>ath an influence 
which is wholly spiritual. The thought of Lincoln is in 
itself a benediction. The utterance of his name is an 
expression of charity and compassion. He has made rich 
the life of his people and has taught them the nearness of 
God. As Lincoln's example is to us, so must our example 
be to the world. I hope the day may speedily come when 
peace will brood over the earth, when men will accept 
as the law of nations the simple tests of right and wrong, 
when force will be displaced by reason and justice, when 
power gives way to conscience. May the people of every 
clime strive together in perfect concord and harmony for 



24 Samuel W. Belford 

the universal betterment of mankind, and to bring to pass 
a world-wide patriotism in the acceptance of a world-wide 
brotherhood. We are all His children. Differences of 
tongue or race, of country or condition, are but the prod- 
ucts of environment. Beneath them all is the imperish- 
able unity of humanity. 

It is upon this that we must ultimatel}^ rely ; it is from 
this that the salvation of the human race must come. 

How feeble against His purposes and laws are the 
mightiest armies and the strongest fleets. How idle to 
misuse material power to accomplish injustice, to wreak 
our will by force, to conquer through fear. 

We may rise or fall ; we may travel again the highway 
of error, where other nations have gone before, to find 
that God's laws await us at the end, as they existed at the 
beginning. If wealth and power ever lead us to arrogant 
conquest, or turn into false channels the energies and 
strength of our people; if, having them, v\^e forget from 
whence they come, may the memory of Lincoln's gentle 
life recall our wandering steps. 

"For heathen heart that puts her trust, 

In reeking tube and iron shard, 
All valiant dust that builds on dust, 

And, guarding, calls not Thee to guard, 
For frantic boast and foolish word. 

Thy mercj^ on Thy people. Lord." 



THE PROGRESSIVE STATE FROM THE UNI- 
VERSITY POINT OF VIEW.* 

By Joseph Edward Stubbs 

The Duty of Service 

University education is a training for service. The 
education received from books, from the laboratory, from 
the library, from friendship, has in vieAv service — public 
and private service. The aim of the university, ideally 
expressed, is service. The fundamental purpose of the 
student's college life should be intelligently directed to 
the best training for the highest ends of service. If this 
be not the ultimate aim of the work in universities, 
colleges, and public schools, then these institutions have 
no reason for their existence. If this be not their lofty 
aim and purpose, then the money that is paid out freely 
and gladly for the support of these institutions is wasted, 
utterly wasted. If our schools, our colleges, our universi- 
ties do not result in the formation of strong and beautiful 
characters, fitted by training to bear the burdens, the 
duties, and the privileges of citizenship, then the taxation 
of the people for their support is not justified, and the 
money that is poured out so freely from private sources 
is a mistake. But the money is not wasted. Benefactions 
are appreciated. Universities and colleges feel the re- 
sponsibility which these gifts place upon their adminis- 
trators and their faculties. 

Every university has an exalted ideal of the good that 
it is doing, of the blessings that it is conferring, of the 
citizenship that it is cultivating, of the life of public and 
private service which is its dominating principle. The 

*An address delivered at the Baptist Church, Reno, Nevada, March 12, 1911. 

25 



26 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

university keeps its eye fixed upon the stars. It takes 
its bearing from the stars, which represent the divinity of 
light. Bat, while it may sweep the heavens with the 
glass of the astronomer, its work is upon the earth, and 
its purpose is to make better the life of man by service, 
and to spread the knowledge of the brotherhood of man 
wherever its influence can reach. 

Keep in your thought, therefore, this fundamental and 
paramount principle — that human life within the bound- 
aries of this great Commonwealth ; human life that finds 
its finest expression in the family relation, the unit, the 
center, of all social well-being; or in the larger life of 
the community, the school district, seeking both by law 
and association the culture of all common schools and 
the opportunity for every one to make the best of him- 
self; or in the larger and more complex relations that 
grow out of county organization ; or in its highest form, 
in the state administration, the Governorship, the Su- 
preme Court, the Legislature — that all life is service. If 
in this simple organization for human welfare this vital 
principle of human brotherhood prevails; if the family is 
kept secure by law and by public opinion; if the entire 
Commonwealth is ruled and controlled by the principle 
of service, service for others, service for one's self — this 
State is a fine example of a Progressive State. 

Morally considered, this State is making progress 
when there is developed in its individual, family, social, 
political, educational, and religious life the working out, 
under practical forms, of the ideal of public service ; when 
the purpose of every man in business and in social life is 
governed by the welfare of others, as well as of himself; 
when he will receive no gain, he will achieve no success, 
he will be a party to no policy that invades or destroys 
the prosperity and happiness of the other fellow. A Pro- 
gressive State is progressive only in an ethical or moral 



The Progressive State 27 

sense. There is no permanent gain to the citizens of this 
Commonwealth unless that gain is accomplished, that end 
achieved, by strictly moral considerations, by a life that 
is governed by the ideal of service to others as well as 
service to one 's self. I know that there are some philoso- 
phers and men of practical mind who say that everything 
that is done by man is done from a selfish motive, through 
selfish interest, having in mind self and selfish gain. This 
is not so. There are those whose lives are governed by 
the principle of the Sermon on the Mount, who, if a man 
ask them to go with him one mile, will go with him twain ; 
who follow devotedly, even passionately, the law of 
Christ, which says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Who is 
this neighbor — mine and thine? Read the story of the 
Good Samaritan and find the answer. There are those 
who meet the high requirements of this law, and go forth 
to meet them as sweetly, as cheerfully, as heroically as 
they respond to the wooing of a beautiful summer's morn. 
The rule of David Harum would be called practical, but 
it would hardly be designated as "golden". Says David, 
"Do unto the other fellow as he would do unto you, but 
see that you do it fust". The Golden Rule, as set forth 
in the Sermon on the Mount, breathes the true spirit of 
brotherhood and helpfulness, is everlastingly true, and 
to be practiced ought to rest firmly upon the conscience 
of every human being. The University seeks to train its 
students to the fulfillment of this divine precept. 

Money from the State is usually given to the Uni- 
versity with an ungrudging hand. Private wealth has in 
late years found its way in abundance to the universities 
of the country. Men have found no better way to do 
good and be helpful than by the bestowment of their 
wealth upon educational institutions. Within the past 
few years the University of Nevada has received a share 



28 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

of these gracious benefactions. Without this aid the Uni- 
versity would now be lagging behind in its efforts to carry 
out its principle of public and private service in Universi- 
ty life ; but as it is, the University has made great steps 
in advance and is keeping pace with many older colleges 
in thickly settled communities. It is doing work unsur- 
passed by any other institution. It keeps before the 
minds of its Regents, its Faculty, and its students the help- 
ful ideal of being of the utmost service to this State and 
to the Nation. Young men and women, when they enter 
the university, do not always consciously have in mind 
the distinct aim of service, the distinct aim of citizenship. 
Sometimes young men enter college for the sake of the 
friendships they form, of the fellowships they establish, 
of the social life they enjoy. Sometimes they enter col- 
lege with the distinct aim of gaining knowledge because 
it is often said that "Knowledge is power", but without 
the enlarging and illuminating influence of seeking 
knowledge that thej^ may be trained and fitted the better 
for service. Mr. Stokes says that "Often a false sense 
of proportion acquired during college days sticks to a 
man through life, and has caused many a man to leave 
the path of usefulness for a life of vice and laziness". 
Knowledge alone, secured for its own sake, is of little 
value, and there is no adequate gain of power from knowl- 
edge acquired and stimulated by marks or rank in classes. 
The only way of insuring the education which will result 
in friendship, in knowledge, in breadth of view, and in 
power is for the student to keep in mind constantly the 
ideal of public and private service. 

No state should be called progressive unless its progress 
is based upon moral or ethical considerations. There is 
no distinction between private and public morality. I am 
aware that there are some schools of thought in which 
this distinction is held. "The Stoic formula is, 'To live 



The Progressive Stx\.te 29 

according to reason' — and the world is not likely to get 
beyond this — to let reason, not passion, rule our lives. 
Civilization is first and before all things ethical. Not 
literature, not art, not science, not commerce and manu- 
factures, not the soldier and the policeman, but morality 
is its foundation. Truth and right are the very breath 
of life to states, as to individual men. It is to follow that 
which reason, speaking through conscience, dictates as 
right. This is the only true rule of public as of private 
life." 

The true end of civil societ.y, whether this applies to 
the civil society of the Nation, or of the state, or to the 
counties and the communities of the state, is a noble exist- 
ence, a worthy life, in which the ideal of service and 
brotherhood prevails. "The sacred distinction between 
person and thing", as Coleridge well observes, "is the 
light and life of all law, human and divine." The dis- 
tinction between right and wrong remains eternally, ever- 
lastingly true. 

It is the aim of the university thoroughly to teach this 
fundamental doctrine of morality and to instill the teach- 
ing of public service and human brotherhood as founded 
upon the eternal distinction between right and wrong. I 
know that this is ofttimes regarded as the teaching of an 
ideal that has no place in the practical affairs of life. I 
know that there are some who will teach that what one 
ought to do as an individual does not hold true in public 
life. Yet this was the teaching that gave courage and 
justice and ultimately far reaching influence to the public 
life of the gentleman who gave that epigrammatic ad- 
dress before the Young Men's Christian Association on 
"Soldiers of Peace."* It applies to the judgment and 
conscience and sense of fair play of every right-minded 
citizen. 

*Former Governor Joseph W. Folk of Missouri. 



30 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

It is the duty of the State University to train every 
one of its students to a life of public service. Our democ- 
racy is founded upon the theory that we each and every 
one take a strong and impartial interest in seeing that 
our legislature, our commerce, our schools, our every- 
thing, is conducted in such a way as to give every man 
an equal chance, so far as conditions permit, to make a 
living, to educate and to rear his children well and with 
the best educational advantages, to secure for his house- 
hold many of the things which contribute to the ease and 
culture and welfare of those within the home. The ex- 
periment of democracy in the United States will only 
fail, if it ever fails, because the citizens have not done 
their duty and have left their resources and their privi- 
leges as a prey to those who do not observe the Golden 
Rule. 

The privileges and the advantages that the university 
gives are past reckoning, and in their social and scholastic 
relations the students should aim to be lifters and not 
leaners, so that when they take their place as members 
of society they will exemplify in their lives and practice 
the doctrine of public service ; that their hands and their 
heads and their hearts will be at the service of their com- 
munities in all public affairs, not that they may win per- 
sonal glory, or esteem, or wealth, but that they may 
simply and honestly be helpful to others as they wish to 
be helped by others; that they may seek to lift up, not 
to cast down ; that they may be willing to serve at a loss 
to themselves, if necessary, always lifting, never leaning. 

There are two kinds of people on earth today, 

Just two kinds of people, no more, I say. 

Not the saint and the sinner, for 'tis well understood 

The good are half bad, and the bad are half good; 

Not the rich and the poor, for to count a iTian's wealth 

You must first know the state of his conscience and health; 



The Progressive State 31 

Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span 

Who puts on vain airs is not counted a man; 

Not the happy and sad, for the swift-flying years 

Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears. 

No! The two kinds of people on earth I mean 

Are the people who lift and the people who lean. 

Where'er you go you will find the world's masses 

Are always divided in just these two classes; 

And, oddly enough, you will find too, I ween. 

There is only one lifter to twenty who lean. 

In what class are you? Are you easing the load 

Of over-taxed lifters who toil down the road? 

Or are you a leaner, who lets others bear 

Your portion of labor and worry and care?* 

The university seeks to develop a sentiment that every 
student stand erect, square with the world, his face ever 
towards the rising sun of improvement of the people, of 
the civil society of which he is a member, that he stand 
with an eye that looks into every other eye and is not 
ashamed because he has done nothing to be ashamed of, — 
one who fulfills the teaching of the psalm which ought 
to be the chart of every citizen in this dem6cracy. If I 
did not tell you that this psalm was sung into the hearts 
of all the people thousands of years ago, you would say 
that its teachings are thoroughly modern and apply to 
the present condition of society: 

Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in 
thy holy hill? 

He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and 
speaketh the truth in his heart. 

He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his 
neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. 

In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoreth 
them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and 
changeth not. 

. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh re- 
ward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall 
never be moved. 

*Ella Wheeler Wilcox 



32 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

Civilization Is Ethical 

Now you will see that the main thought of this dis- 
course is this: that all civilization or society is founded 
upon an ethical basis ; that its roots are in the distinction 
between right and wrong; that public morality, public 
justice, public honesty, public courage, is just the same 
as private morality, justice, honesty, and courage; and 
that the term "Progressive State", as applied to the 
Nation, or to the several states of the Union, or to a 
great commonwealth, refers to its progress according to 
.the true standards of morality, whether in private or in 
public life; that the thinking and feeling and acting of 
our citizens, whether acting as individuals or in solidarity 
for the public good, are governed and controlled in prac- 
tice by the principles of morality; that equal and exact 
justice to every man shall be done, even though some 
part of society will suffer thereby; that business is con- 
ducted according to Christ's Golden Rule; that politics 
are managed by the same rule ; that the education of our 
children is founded — deeply founded — in the same rule; 
that a man would rather be right than hold any office of 
honor or pride ; that a man would rather remain poor all 
his days than take advantage of his neighbor; that the 
proverbial horse-trader would tell the bad, as well as 
the good points of the horse that he proposes to trade; 
that the sun of publicity shall shine upon all transactions 
of public corporations and private industry. 

I have sought long and earnestly to find out what 
voice should be commanding in the affairs of this great 
Commonwealth, whose interests and whose good name are 
yours and mine. There are many and divergent opinions, 
as there will always be, as to what laws will contribute 
helpfully and directly to the welfare of this State. Some 
will say it should be the vox populi, or "voice of the 



The Progressive State 33 

people". But we know that sometimes this voice is 
neither reasonable nor sane ; that it is moved by passion 
and by self interest, which for a time seems to carry all 
before it. Yet if in this democracy the voice of the people 
does not control, where shall we go for the last and final 
word? Our fathers made and ordained the Constitution 
of 1787 as a chart for this great people, whose boundaries 
now are limited only by the oceans east and west. They 
provided for amendments to this Constitution, so that as 
the Nation grew and gained experience it might amend 
this great instrument to meet the necessary conditions. 
The country gave a great jurist to interpret the pro- 
visions of this Constitution, and it gave great thinkers, 
great statesmen, both in the Senate and in the House, to 
teach broadly its principles and provisions to the people. 
Forty-sis states answer to the roll call, and these forty- 
six states are united by the invisible bonds of this power- 
ful instrument into one mighty, commanding, rich, and 
spiritual people. One thing is clear — that it was intended 
and was so stated in our charter that there should be 
certain rights and privileges restricted to the states, and 
certain other privileges left to the National Government 
that should be supreme in the federal group of this 
Nation. It seems clear, further, that this restriction of 
the powers of the state and of the general government 
should remain so, that each may work out well its own 
problems and its own destiny. No theory of state's rights 
should be accepted that will interfere with Federal con- 
trol of those things which make for the common good. 
On the other hand, no theory of Federal control should 
be permitted to interfere with the rights reserved to the 
states, enabling them to work out the best interest of 
the people of the state. 



34 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

Progressive Nevada 

The Commonwealth of Nevada is the fourth in amount 
of territory in the Union, embracing 110,690 square miles. 
Numerically it has the smallest population in the Union, 
about 82,000 people. It is a state of vast deserts, of 
towering mountains, of rich mines of gold, and silver, 
and copper; of hundreds of thousands of acres of irriga- 
ble land that only needs to be tickled with the hoe to 
give back an abundant harvest. Upon its vast stretches 
of upland are pastured unnumbered cattle and sheep, and 
soon many more acres for the husbandman will be re- 
claimed by the State by the conservation of the flood 
waters. Now, wdthin the confines of this State are 82,000 
men, women, and children, moved by the common impulse 
of humanity toward the making of homes and gaining 
of wealth. This State has the same problems, equal if not 
greater difficulties, with every other state in the Union. 
In the University, in provision for our common schools, 
in charitable institutions, as in the Hospital for Mental 
Diseases, and the Orphans' Home, in the penitentiary 
for criminals, in caring for the youth by means of a 
Juvenile Court, who can say that this State is not striv- 
ing to do its duty and has not made the amplest pro- 
vision consistent with its ability? In the ultimate analysis 
we must rely on an INTELLIGENT PUBLIC OPINION 
to govern in the making of laws, in the conduct of 
officials, and in the creating of a public conscience. I 
do not know where else we can go, or on what else 
we can rely, except on an opinion which is enlightened 
by reason and put in force by the common conscience of 
our people. 

This State in its development politically ought to pro- 
ceed along lines which were established by the Constitu- 
tion of the State. Then as the years go by, after careful 



The Progressive State 35 

discussion and consideration by the people, such changes 
may be made in the conduct of the State as seem best. 
This order of development is historical and progressive. 
The change of the law in favor of direct primaries is a 
ease in point, and the operation of that law has, on the 
whole, been good, although there are some defects in it 
which the present Legislature is seeking to remedy. I 
am inclined to think that some of the proposed legislation 
in our neighboring states is really not progressive at all, 
and in time these states will change them. The Com- 
mission Plan of cities seems to be really progressive legis- 
lation and will doubtless work out great good to the 
cities which are thus governed. Gambling is repugnant 
to the moral sense of the people in every state in the 
Union, and gambling was removed by law from within 
the boundaries of the State of Nevada because the moral 
sentiment of our people compelled its abolition. The law 
against gambling has behind it and in support of it an 
intelligent public opinion and an aroused public con- 
science. I think that open gambling in this State is dead 
forever, and the attempts made at the present session of 
the Legislature to modify the law so as to make a viola- 
tion of it a misdemeanor instead of a felony have failed 
because the public sentiment of this State will not allow 
this law to be tampered with. 

Some people think that the only kind of legislation 
adequate to prevent the wrongs done by the liquor traffic 
is entire prohibition of that traffic in this State. Others 
consider that the saloon business should be guarded and 
taxed so as to eliminate the disreputable saloons and 
dives and to make the legitimate business pay an adequate 
revenue to the State and to the county, and, by law, to 
compel the liquor dealer not to sell to habitual drunkards, 
to Indians, or to minors. A bill to this effect has been 
introduced in the House by a member from Humboldt, 



36 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

and I think it is a good bill, and one that ought to be 
passed. But the point I wish to make is that any required 
legislation in this State must have the sanction, the sup- 
port of Sane Public Opinion to make it effective. 

The question of proper divorce legislation will have 
little or no effect until an aroused and educated public 
opinion demands that there shall be certain restrictions. 
The University stands for the sanctity of the home ; it 
Avants to see homes dotting every hillside and valley in 
this State. It values the good name of the State as some- 
thing above the price of rubies, but the only way that 
it can restrict the divorce evil by law is b}^ an aroused 
public sentiment, a quickened public conscience. The Uni- 
versity regards as detrimental to the State the practice 
which teaches our young people that marriage bonds are 
lightly held, that marriage is but an affair which young 
people can enter into heedlessly and abandon when they 
are repentant. The dissolution of the marriage bond 
ruins the home, robs children of their rightful inherit- 
ance to home and education. Surely this is a menace to 
our civilization. 

Public opinion, carefully and soundly cultivated, will 
in the end arise as a flood and sweep away the evils that 
beset our civic life. We may for a time look upon these 
evils calmly, and not feel the movement of the mighty 
force impelling us to action. But let the sentiment, the 
idea, take firm grasp upon the State that a certain course 
of action is wrong and is robbing our society of its truest 
birthright, and taking away from us the holiest ties — 
then we can be assured that in time public opinion will 
compel legal action that will make these evils no longer 
possible. Public sentiment is akin to public opinion, but 
the word gives emphasis to the fact that in social affairs 
the rational emotions of the heart are a tremendous im- 
pelling and compelling power. 



The Progressive State 37 

Is it not possible to say that equal suffrage for women 
is one of the marks of a progressive state, and that the 
legislation leading to it may be justly characterized as 
progressive legislation ? The claim of the right of women 
to vote has certainly a moral basis. The women of this 
country are large owners of property in their own right. 
No class of people is more deeply interested in the public 
schools and the universities than the intelligent and edu- 
cated women of the country; there is no danger of its in- 
terfering with the duties of maternity or motherhood, 
and it will put into our body politic a large and growing 
influence of a healthful kind. Some of the states have 
tried it or are trying it with success. In Wyoming, in 
Colorado, in Utah, in Idaho, in Washington, the women 
all have the ballot. None of the ills of which we heard 
have followed women's voting in these states; so, when 
thej^ ask that our State Legislature submit an amend- 
ment to the Constitution permitting women to vote, should 
not this request be granted, and so allow a full and fair 
and free discussion of the question to take place through- 
out the State? 

Public Sentiment 

You know that President McKinley was averse to be- 
ginning a war with Spain. But the blowing up of the 
Maine in Havana harbor set the country on fire with in- 
dignation, and public sentiment gained such force that 
the President was compelled by this aroused public senti- 
ment to declare war against Spain. 

Sentiment is of the heart and throws beauty and 
grace and power over a man 's life. It leads him to do some 
things which his intellect cannot approve. A wise public 
sentiment is the salvation of the state and society. I be- 
lieve that a sound public sentiment is the desire of all 
good people, and in the end it is strong enough to lead 



38 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

men to adopt those sound principles of government which 
we all want to see. 

As the story runs, a committee, consisting of George 
Washington, Robert Morris, and Colonel George Ross, 
called upon Mrs. Betsy Ross and asked her if she could 
make a flag. She said she could try. Whereupon they 
produced a design roughly drawn of thirteen stripes and 
thirteen stars. 

The authentic history of our flag begins on June 14, 
1777, when in pursuance of the report of a committee, the 
American Congress adopt the following resolution: 

Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thir- 
teen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen 
stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation. 

AVhatever may have been the actual origin of this flag, 
the sentiment which it has conveyed for 134 years was 
appropriately expressed by Washington: 

We take the star from Heaven, the red from our mother 
country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we 
have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to 
posterity representing liberty. 

So Betsy Ross sat sewing the red and white bars, the 
blue field, and white stars into the symbol of American 
nationality— the Stars and Stripes. And today that flag 
with its forty-six stars floats from the top of every public 
building and from every school house. It spreads its 
folds to the breeze on every American ship, and, wher- 
ever that flag floats, it is a symbol of the power, and the 
wealth, and the integrity, and the nobility of a great 
people. Every American citizen can invoke the power 
of the great Nation, which the flag represents, if he is in 
the line of his duty; and yet it represents only a senti- 
ment, but a sentiment so strong, so vital as to arouse 
the passion and the judgment of this great Nation in de- 
fense of a wrong done to its humblest citizen. 



The Progressive State 39 

You knov/ the incident, how an American citizen was 
condemned to death for some alleged crime in Spanish 
Cuba. The American Consul was persuaded that he was 
unjustly condemned. In the morning he was led out to 
his execution, and stood in front of the grave already dug 
for him, facing six armed soldiers who were to be his exe- 
cutioners, when the American Consul suddenly threw 
over him the American flag, and said, "I invoke the power 
of the great nation which this flag represents to protect 
this man in this hour of his great need". And the Span- 
iards did not dare give the order to fire. 

Friends, I have a vision of this Commonwealth of Ne- 
vada clothing herself with honor and power, taking a 
noble place among the states of this great Nation, making 
our laws according to the ideals of public morality, and 
our Legislature doing equal and exact justice to all men. 
I see a State where every man and woman will have an 
interest in public affairs as in private affairs, and will 
sanction by their votes the election to office of only those 
who love God and do their duty according to the lofty 
ideals which shall govern this State. We may trudge the 
highways and byways of our life in this State, dusty, 
tired, worn, but then we shall carry within our breasts 
a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man, 
and a desire to give every man what we claim for our- 
selves — equal rights, equal privileges. 

I see as in a vision the University of Nevada — our 
University— through the years and decades and centuries 
to come : she is standing, as always, for those things which 
make for the character of the young people, and the pros- 
perity and welfare of this State ; she represents in herself 
and in her students service for others, good citizens in 
the State. 

The University comes to the people to minister, not 
to be ministered unto. I see the University supplied with 



40 Joseph Edward Stubbs 

ample means, provided by this State and by private gifts, 
to do the great work which is placed upon her to do. I 
see her grounds and buildings clothed with beauty and 
fitted in the best way for usefulness. Her library, her 
laboratories, her classrooms are all of the best, so that the 
young people who come out of her halls shall know the 
best, and shall seek to work out in other places the beauty, 
the excellence, the good taste, the worthy character which 
has come to them during their university life. 

Through her doors three thousand students, under- 
graduates and graduates, have passed out into life, pre- 
pared for the duties and the responsibilities and privileges 
of manhood and womanhood. The record of these young 
men and young women is a record of which any institu- 
tion may be proud. Yet this is only the advance guard 
of the number of young people who are to go through 
this University year after year, century after century. 

What a glorious army they will be, and what a sense 
of responsibility they will place upon this State, under 
whose guardian care this University is placed ! 

The University, beautiful for situation, the joy of the 
whole earth, this University is our University for ever and 
for ever, and she— our Alma Mater — shall be our guide 
even unto death. 



LEJe'13 



